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By Louise Rachlis
Comfortable with his hardworking
team, Ottawa Race
Weekend race director
John Halvorsen plans to spend
some time this year actually
watching the races.
“This will be my first time in
the lead vehicle for the 10K and
the marathon,” he says. “I’ve
almost done exactly what I want
to – and that’s to have nothing to
do on the race weekend.”
And one of the things he might
see Saturday as he watches the
front runners of the MDS Nordion
10-kilometre road race, is his
20-year old record of 28:12
falling.
“We have 11
men who have
run faster
than 28:12 in
the past two
years,” says
Manny Rodrigues,
Elite
Athlete Co-ordinator
for the
Ottawa Race
Weekend.
“That includes
the
top Canadian
and defending
champion,
Simon Bairu;
the top guys on
the U.S. scene
this spring,
Moses Kigen,
Robert Letting, George Misoi and
a top runner from the European
scene, Robert Kipchumba. With
the new course record bonus
and gender challenge, we hope
to have the ingredients for a new
course record.”
“I didn’t think much of it when
I did it,” says Halvorsen, a Nortel
Networks product manager, and
race director since 2001.
“It was my fastest time. It was
an early May test telling me I
was getting close to qualifying
for the Olympics ... I joke with
Manny (Rodrigues) that I want
my $10 back.”
That’s because that first year,
organizers brought in a Kenyan
runner living in California for the
race and Halvorsen had to pay
his own entry fee while the
Kenyan’s costs were covered.
So, he paid the $10 entry fee
and then set his unbroken record.
Halvorsen has three course
records, and got his Runner’s
World road racer of the year title
the following year. His other Nordion
victories came in 1991, ’92
and ’95. He was second in 1994.
In the late 1980s and early
1990s, Halvorsen was one of the
top road racers in North America.
He also qualified for the 1988
and ’92 Summer Olympics and
the 1991 world championships
as a 10,000-metre track runner
for his native Norway.
As a member of the volunteer
board of directors, he’s seeing
the Nordion race from a different
perspective.
He says without the elite program
that Ottawa offers now, his
record would stand forever. “But
we get high calibre
runners
here now. The
field is definitely
now here to
do it. Every
race is different,
but it’s time
for it to go. I
chuckle every
year. I would be
more satisfied
with a really
good time than
in not losing my
record. If we
can get a time
under 28 minutes,
I’ll be happy.
We have the
calibre of runners
to do that.”
Ottawa now
has the IAAF (International Amateur
Athletic Federation) label,
silver in both the marathon and
the 10k. There is only one other
labeled event in Canada, the
Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
For the IAAF certification, a lot
of questions are asked about the
quality of your elites, he says.
“We don’t have enough runners
of that stature to quite qualify
for gold. Media is also extremely
important; the business aspect,
marketing and branding. We’ve
done a great job of that in Ottawa.”
He wants the race weekend to
“shut down the city” in a positive
way and get attention from all
over the city. “People are taking
notice. And I have athletes who
tell me that going to races everywhere
is nice, but in Ottawa particularly,
the city is part of it.”
Back in 2000, there around
9,000 runners participating
during the weekend. The race
committee’s three year goal
was to break 20,000 registrations
and there was some
skepticism, he says, but it
happened – 11,000, 13,000,
16,000 and then 20,000. Last
year there were 29,400 without
the skate race. “This year
I’m predicting there will be at
least 31,000. We were at
23,000 more than a month
ahead.”
He’s excited about the soldout
“Kids’ Marathon,” where
pupils from grades three to
eight do the equivalent of 41
kilometres of exercise in the
weeks leading up to Race
Weekend, and then on May
25th run the final 1.2 kilometres
and cross the marathon
finish line. “I’m looking forward
to seeing that this year.”
“There are large, large
masses of people doing the
races as fundraising for their
one event of the year,” he
says. “ We also have people
learning to run, improving
their lifestyle. Numbers are
coming from those kinds of
people. It’s interesting; it’s a
big change.”
Even when he was competing
for Norway, he says, “my
team packed up and went to
New York one year. Boston
and New York were always
destinations, but Ottawa is
not as well known. A lot of
runners can get a good time
in Ottawa for a debut
marathon and then move on,
so we’re getting better
known.”
He first joined the race
board in 1999. “It’s a lot of
work, but we do have staff
Jim Robinson, general manager;
Joe Du Vall, assistant
general manager, and a new
communications manager
Susan Marconi. There’s so
much to get done, and it goes
on all year round.
“We have the board to look
after high level policy things,
and the race committee looks
after day to day race operations,
and they are all volunteers.
They do the heavy lifting.
People enjoy being part of
it because it’s such a major
event now.”
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